Reply to My wife thinks I need to see a therapist, I think I'm aware of my problems

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It sounds like she's saying you have anger issues and giving you a chance to own them and resolve them.[/quote]

No, I think she thinks anything that doesn’t work in your life is something that needs to be unpacked.

I have no problem admitting I sometimes lose my temper. But I feel like the conversation with the therapist went like,

Me: sometimes I lose my temper with the kids.

Her: is it often?

Me: no, but more than I would like

Her: well what is usually happening when it happens?

Me: well, I’d say it typically happens on school mornings, if my wife had to leave early and, it’s like 10 minutes until we have to go leave and one kid is crying because they don’t want pizza for lunch and the other is refusing to put his shoes on and also just announced he broke his school issued laptop.

Her: hmmm well, that sound stressful

Me: yes

Her; have you considered maybe waking your children earlier or perhaps getting up earlier yourself or I help avoid these stressful crunch moments

Me: am I really paying for this?

Her: we’ll discuss next week that’s all the time we have

So, yeah,,, it feels like some Paxil and kids who put their shoes on when they’re supposed to would solve most of my problems. [/quote]

So you don’t handle things well when life doesn’t go your way? That isn’t your kids (or anybody else), that is you. It sounds like you know this. Parenting classes could help. Learning about child development and what is reasonable for different ages could help. If you keep going with therapy I’d focus on how you cope when life doesn’t go your way. [/quote]

Why do you think I don't understand child development or what is reasonable for different ages?[/quote]

You wrote that you lost your temper when your kid was crying over pizza for lunch and another kid was refusing to put on their shoes.  [/quote]

And when you have to leave the house in 10 minutes lest you be late for a meeting and you have one child who is crying over something that you don't have much control over and another child is refusing to put their shoes on... you feel... happy? Calm?

I'd submit it's an objectively stressful situation.

Ideally, I'd have no work pressures and my children would have a robot that makes them the perfect lunch and a school that would let them go to school shoeless, but that's not, at present in the cards. If I can identify the thing that makes me feel a way I don't want to feel, and I can identify potential solutions to those problems, and if I have the agency to make those changes and if I DO make those changes... and if I talk to my doctor about an RX... what is therapy going to do?[/quote]

It may be an objectively stressful situation, but loosing your temper isn’t  an objectively reasonable response for an adult. I say that as an adult who has learned slowly how the situations don’t excuse my reactions. A good therapist can help you identify all the things you laid out more quickly than you can on your own.[/quote]

Eh, it sounds like trying to ignore the reality. Stressful situations are stressful and I should work harder to handle them. Pretending that my dad not being a good dad has antyhing to do with it, seems like a waste of time.[/quote]

I’m saying the situation of being late is stressful. I am NOT saying ignore that. But loosing your temper isn’t the response you want here (as you’ve said). Not everyone looses their temper when stressed. I used to think that was a normal response. m contrast, my spouse and a sibling would just shrug and say well, we’ll be late. Then they’d calmly talk to the child and in minutes the situation would be resolved and everyone would be happily on their way, maybe not even late if traffic is light.  I, in contrast, would have yelled and then it would have taken 30 minutes to get everyone on their way with everyone feeling terrible about the morning. That was many years ago but seeing the difference in handling normal kid stressors was what finally got my attention that maybe my high levels of stress weren’t solely due to situations beyond my control.  I wasn’t coping well with stress.[/quote]

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